SUBANG, 12 Jan 2009: Malaysia should organise supply ships containing food, medicine, blankets and other necessities with other countries for the war-torn victims of Gaza.
Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said although it was admirable that the country was sending aid through Mercy and other organisations, the scale was not sufficient.
“Their hospitals have been bombed, and people are deprived of food and medicine.
“Malaysia should initiate this special effort to send more supplies via ships because Palestine’s neighbours like Egypt and Jordan will not allow such supplies to go through their territory,” said Mahathir after giving a lecture on Global Peace at Taylor’s College, here, today.
Mahathir said ships not carrying weapons travelling in international waters could not be attacked or sunk as such an act was criminal in nature.
He also suggested that the United Nations veto system be revamped in order to have more balance within the General Assembly and Security Council.
“The best thing is not to have the veto system at all. But since the big powers believe they should have more rights than others, we should give them that right by stipulating a condition.
“If only one veto is used against a resolution by a permanent member, it should not be valid. Instead, only a veto supported by two to three permanent members and two to three non-permanent members should be considered valid.
“This is only an idea. I don’t know whether it will work or not,” said Mahathir.
He then called Israel a terrorist state via the definition that the entire Israeli army was terrorising the people of Gaza.
“If you take the definition of terrorism as the feeling of fear being terrified by anything, whoever inflicts that fear is a terrorist. Today, we know that the people of Gaza are terrified by the idea of being killed by the Israeli army.
“The fact that this is a nation that goes about killing people doesn’t make any difference. The same goes with terrorist suicide bombers where people are terrified of being blown up,” he said.
In his lecture, Mahathir suggested that the world cripple the United States dollar by refusing to trade products in US currency in order to ensure that the US would not be able to field an overpowered military force.
“The United States has the highest double digit deficit in the world. Yet they have the money to spend on their military. This is because we lend them money when we buy their bonds and we use their currency.
“If we stop using their currency, the USD will drop sharply,” explained Mahathir whose argument was also supported by Dr Chandra Muzaffar in the latter’s lecture on Gaza at the International Islamic University on 9 Jan.
Mahathir also reiterated his idea to criminalise war, arguing that currently “everyone sees war as something normal when two nations disagree instead of something to be reviled”.
In the old days, slavery was considered normal. Nowadays, slavery is outlawed, people are revolted by slavery. In order for this to happen, it will take time.
“The same goes for war. We must implant the idea that war, for whatever reason, is wrong and we should criminalise it,” he said. — Bernama
